


Equilibrium

by FlyingMocha



Series: Equilibrium [1]
Category: James May's Man Lab RPF, Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 02:57:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11393943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyingMocha/pseuds/FlyingMocha
Summary: James May hates being touched.  Or at least this is what he's led everyone to believe.





	Equilibrium

**Author's Note:**

> The Bleeding Obvious (disclaimer):  
> Totally made up. Any resemblance to reality is unintentional on my part. It's even less real than reality television.  
> Figment of my imagination. Well, actually it's probably 95% my own ideas, and 5% that idiotic class lecture on cultural issues in non-sexual relationships, but anyway.

James May hates being touched. Or at least this is what he's led everyone to believe.

What James really hates is imbalance. He quite likes being touched, but too much makes him feel unbalanced, too far to one end of an invisible spectrum. People who enjoy giving the sort of affection he enjoys receiving, tend not to be big on moderation. If he allows it to start, it usually ends in disaster when he doesn't get to spend enough time disengaged from others. And that's essential, that time of personal renewal, insulated from the thoughts and feelings of others, so they don't wear him out completely. Touchy-feely people feed his need for human contact, but they don't know when to give it a rest. Jeremy Clarkson was one of the worst he'd ever met. Restraint, as far as James could tell, is a cardinal sin in Clarkson's Britain. So James did what he often does with people like this, and trained him never to touch, presented himself as a person who is deeply uncomfortable with non-sexual contact. To his credit, he respected James' wishes, but he also poked fun at James on national television, as is Clarkson's wont when he stumbles upon an interesting piece of information. And so the on-screen persona of James May, allergic to man-contact, was born.

The trouble with that approach was twofold. Neither Clarkson nor Hammond understood James when he would occasionally touch them. They often perceived it as accidental, stepping back and apologising for the unexpected contact. And given the demands the BBC placed on his time, getting to know new people was something that happened almost exclusively at work, either at his primary job or on one of the satellite projects he was able to talk the network into letting him do. Which led to the second problem with his approach. The entire nation had gotten the idea that James May, the real live person, was the same as the James May who entertained them with daft car shenanigans every week.

Oz Clarke reinforced this perception by trying to hug him on camera. Like Clarkson, Clarke didn't seem to understand the deep emotional power of a hug, nor the concept of appropriate timing. Or moderation, for that matter, but that's to be expected when working with, basically, a professional alcoholic. New people, new colleagues, came into his life with this understanding of who he was and how to treat him, based on a caricature created by Jeremy Clarkson's inability to let any personality quirk go unadvertised. Everyone around him was quite well accustomed to the supposed truth that he hated being touched, even people who'd never really watched his work with Clarkson and Hammond. They heard about it secondhand. Working with James May, are you? That's that car guy, isn't it… he's a little odd, that one… hates being touched. 

Now, anytime he tried to even sit a little closer than usual, it only prompted questions about what was wrong, whether he'd gotten bad news from his doctor, and of course Clarkson's famous homosexualist jokes, which James tried not to think too much about, as experience had taught him that people like that often were revealing deep insecurities of their own. So he'd not known what to do but continue to play the fictional role he'd unintentionally created. He'd figured out quickly that looking to his girlfriend for that balance wasn't workable, that the romantic and/or sexual nature of their relationship did nothing to meet his need for balance. The concept of "bromance" occurred to him, but the knowledge that ridiculous Americans developed a whole type of relationship specifically to meet this need, really is useless to an Englishman, particularly one who conducts a large portion of his life in front of cameras, be they owned by his employer or the photographers that routinely documented his daily life.

But one thing that worked, at least sort of, was coming up with daft ideas that require a lot of detail work, an extra set of hands, and a lot of closeness. Buying broken motorbikes and convincing Richard Hammond to help him with repairs was one such strategy. Another strategy that worked for him was coming up with vaguely engineering-related programmes, like Toy Stories, and ultimately, Man Lab. Which was how he came to have Sim Oakley in his life, officially listed as the shows' project manager, but James preferred to call Sim his head engineer. The title better suited the work that Sim did for him, both at work and the household projects that they sometimes tinkered with together. James had a special love for things that involved small, fiddly bits, because it meant they got to stand near one another. And he especially loved doing those projects for a show. To compensate for the camera's tendency to distort perspectives and magnify the space between people, they had to stand so close together that he could feel Sim's warmth. Being that close to the gifted creator, able to feel and smell his presence in the warmth and vaguely sawdust-like odour, it calmed him and restored him to equilibrium more than James ever wanted to acknowledge, even to himself.

He'd been in a terrible state of imbalance lately, he knew, to the point that "instability" might not be overstating the situation. James felt increasingly like he was in danger of falling so far to one end of the spectrum that he might not be able to claw his way back to the middle road. It had been so bad that the entire third series of Man Lab was designed around his need to set himself back right. He'd shot down ideas in their pre-series creative meetings, based solely on the lack of excuses for closeness. He'd approved some, as well, but only to maintain a semblance of normality for his staff, and the ones he'd approved had tended to not require an inordinate amount of pre-filming preparation and design. The lion's share of the planning for this series would be spent with a beer in one hand, a pencil in the other, and Sim across from him at a pub table that his mind very carefully avoided calling "intimately small". The same was true of the construction, much of it involving the two of them. In the first series, James had worked hard to distribute the camera time evenly among those who were willing to step out from behind them. By this time, James knew it was probably obvious that he had a favourite among the staff. Further contributing to his concern about his loss of moderation, he found himself unable to care if the whole staff, or even the whole world, knew that Sim alone lived in that hallowed place of favour in James' heart.

He knew he was asking a lot of Sim, this series. He'd seen evidence of it when they worked on an improvement to the railway, a particularly challenging project that they kept coming back to in between filming other, less irritating tasks. The railway project necessitated a lot of time spent sitting on the lab sofa together, contemplating how to solve the next step. James loved that. It had also pushed Sim so hard, he'd thrown a pencil and swore, in front of a camera and everything. His frustration had given way to laughter almost immediately, which had deeply amused James, but still. He knew that this whole series was a warning that he'd gone completely out of harmony with himself, maybe so far that nobody could help right the balance now. That thought frightened James more than any other.

Which was probably why he'd done what he did after they'd built the water clock, in the first place, he would realise later. But in the moment, that thought hadn't yet occurred to him. He only knew that Sim was giving him an odd look as they rehashed the successes and setbacks of the water clock, verbally exploring and learning from the experience.

"You all right, James?" Sim asked. James frowned, momentarily confused by the question. Then he noticed he had his arm around Sim's shoulders. James jerked away from the unexpected man contact with a mumbled apology. When had he put his arm around the other man? He had the sneaking suspicion that it had been a good few minutes ago, a mate-y shoulder pat that had somehow… veered into something far more disturbing. James winced. He also had the sneaking suspicion that in that absentminded moment, he'd exposed one of the softest bits of his innermost being, to someone with a shocking ability for intuition. Sim tended to use his insight for the mechanical, for things he could build or design, rather than to untangle the mysteries of the human psyche, so James was probably safe. But… but something about the way Sim was looking at him gave him an uneasy feeling, like he might be wrong this time. He felt the need to shield himself from his head engineer's appraising gaze.

"I didn't ask you to stop, James," Sim said. "I asked if you were all right."

"Yeah, I'm fine," James said with a shrug. 

"Why did you react as though you'd been caught with your hand in the cookie jar?" Sim pressed, only to get a terse grumble that sounded a lot like a repeated assertion that James was "fine". Sim hummed in thought, already meandering over to his chalk-table that Sim had made with a slightly rain-damaged sheet of plywood and some chalkboard paint that James had inexplicably found in his shed, and donated to the lab's supply closet of random creativity-starters. James eyed him warily but didn't approach the man who was muttering to himself, drawing stick figures and sketches that represented the last few weeks' worth of film projects: a bun launcher, a water clock, upgrades to the lab's train, beer roulette using game theory, even a daft idea of adding a temperature alarm to a teacup.

It was vaguely creepy, James decided, to be the subject of Sim's reasoning skills, especially when he drew two stick figures hugging, then drew a circle and slash over the figures, the universal "no" symbol, then a question mark next to it. The way Sim scrutinised that bit of his work, then shifted back to take in the other drawings, adding words here and there as he worked. James wondered if he should just… you know, communicate. But now that he was this far entrenched into the BBC-approved caricature he'd created for himself, he wasn't sure how to do anything other than remain fully committed to it, even off camera and off the clock. Besides, now he was genuinely curious whether Sim could crack the puzzle. Maybe a small part of him even wanted to be discovered, to be pursued. James frowned at that thought and busied himself by making tea. Tea fixes everything, after all. Also, it gave him a shield behind which to continue watching the work being done.

Now, Sim was drawing other projects, a cement mixer which James suspected was a representation of the kitchen counter, snowflakes from their Christmas project, a beer mug, and a couple other things that James wasn't sure what they represented. James smiled in spite of himself when Sim drew a crude representation of the Scalextric track they'd built together a few years ago. One of their early projects, Sim had just discovered the joy of being equal partners in a project, using his newfound power to order James to wade into a rather deep pond to help with the over-water race track setup. James still remembered the way Sim very calmly waved off the cameras after he exited the pond, then yelled at him for not letting Sim know that his swimming skills weren't actually sufficient for the assigned task. He hadn't meant to scare his project manager, but one hassle of being English was that he couldn't bring himself to say no, not even for good reason.

Evidently, Sim remembered that, as well. He'd written "can't swim - secret - danger" next to it. Alongside the beer mug, he wrote, "teasing". James wondered what that referred to, although it was almost certainly true; the majority of their interaction involved good-natured teasing and shared laughter. By the train upgrade, he wrote "hours planning," and then an arrow from those words over to the snowflakes, reminding James of just how much more time than expected, had gone into both projects. Then he started adding seemingly random arrows and links among all the drawings. And yet the older man couldn't shake the feeling that a pattern was developing, that none of it was random, that the connections Sim was making were incredibly rational... that James' secrets lay fully exposed among the chalk dust, and all that remained was for Sim to discover how the last few pieces fit together.

Glancing repeatedly over his shoulder at his chalk work, Sim absentmindedly wandered over and made himself a cup of tea when he heard the kettle whistle. He strolled back with the tea, poking at the hot liquid with his finger to check whether it was drinkable yet. Weary of looking at the oddly personal chalkboard work, James made his way upstairs to settle on the sofa in his office, with an aeroplane magazine he'd been meaning to read.

Midway through a cautionary article about an unwisely-attempted landing on a windy day, that ended with the small aircraft upside down next to the runway, James' mind stopped admitting words in favour of listening to the sound of someone coming up into the office, just before the sofa dipped and two strong arms encircled his shoulders. "What are you doing?" James asked, giving Sim a look somewhere between perplexed and perturbed. "I was reading!" The younger man simply peered at him, a knowing, Mona Lisa smile on his face. "What?" James' tone made is irritation plain.

"All you had to do was ask, James," Sim said.

"Sim, what are you on about?" James asked. His choice not to use his preferred pet name for the unkempt visionary alerted Sim that James really didn't know what was going on, and he was genuinely annoyed. Sim sighed, but it came with an indulgent smile.

"You don't hate touch," Sim explained. "You don’t do it like most people, that's all. You're a world of extremes. You need periods of isolation to recharge yourself, but you also need an abundance of contact, to keep yourself in balance. You feel safe with me, possibly because I share both of those needs, and… I don't know, we share several other eccentricities, maybe you feel understood in general, so when you've spent too long on the isolation end of your internal see-saw, you gravitate towards me to regain balance. Does that sound about right?"

"No!" James snapped, trying to sound angry, but a disturbed chuckle gave him away. "I… er… I don't know," he said, the closest he could allow himself to open conversation.

"James, I have come to enjoy your company very much as we've worked together over the past few years. I've developed a great deal of trust and respect for you. I wish you would give me the same respect in return."

James immediately gave up avoiding eye contact in favour of shooting the younger man a wounded look. Respect? Of course he respected Sim, quite a lot. Why didn't Sim know that? "But, I…" His words trailed off when he took in the way the other man was shaking his head. Sim didn't feel respected. Much as James wanted to prove how highly he thought of his colleague, he couldn't. It's not something that one can be argued into feeling. "What have I done to give you that impression?" James asked.

"You look to me for the closeness that will set you in balance, but you won't release your grip on this isolated, standoffish character that you've crafted. You have yourself convinced that you can't tell me what's going on. When you don't attend to your need, when you don't even give me the chance to understand and help, it grows until it escapes your control," Sim explained. One hand drifted upward to rub James' upper arm in a vaguely chummy manner. "It all pours out at once in a big mess, like the water clock on the first test. It turns into awkward gestures that scare you when you notice you've done them, and you channel all that into creating filming schedules and projects that drive me completely mad with frustration instead of… James, if you truly respect me, then when you want a cuddle, don't… don't let it spiral out of control like this, and don't let it affect our work. Tell me what you need, ask me. You're one of my closest friends; I could never say no to you."

"How could you possibly understand?" James asked, still not quite believing what he was being told.

"What, understand that you crave affection without being smothered, and without being obligated to sleep with the person in exchange?" Sim asked. James nodded vigorously, overflowing with relief to hear somebody else describe his lifelong, deeply painful yearning, in so few words. Even James had never figured out how to explain himself in fewer than a dozen pages in his journal over the years. Sim somehow seemed to understand. "Well it could be because I know what it's like to need both isolation and closeness to stay balanced myself, I know how it… I'm sitting here explaining it to you; doesn't that sort of prove that I understand? I've gotten through your walls this far, James, partly because you've allowed it. You might as well let me all the way in."

James blew out a frustrated sigh as he felt his carefully crafted defences, constructed over a lifetime, crumbling around him. Well, crumbling in the place where Sim's been chiselling at it, anyway, and Sim was right. James had maybe spent years goading him into this, encouraging the younger man to pursue him even when he swore he wanted to be left alone. The whole rest of the world believed him when he said that, but Sim didn't. And if he took off the misanthropic cloak he wore like a shield, James knew that he didn't want Sim to fall for the ruse. He shouldn't be shocked or dismayed that he'd gotten exactly the result that, somewhere deep inside, he longed for.

Just tell, just ask. That was Sim's request, the instructions for demonstrating respect. James took a breath, unable to move his gaze from his own hands in his lap. "Would you... er... I, um, I need... can I... please...." James gave a small growl of frustration, then looked into Sim's eyes, his face awash with a silent request for Sim to… do something to make order out of the chaos in his mind, he supposed.

Sim, for his part, reached one hand up to gently take James' reading glasses off, setting them on the desk behind him. "Do you like your neck being rubbed?" Sim asked softly, and for whatever reason, that was the thing that broke the last little bit of the wall that had, for decades, protected his heart. The older man gave in, letting his forehead rest heavily against Sim's cheek, nodding as he leant into the embrace. Finally, instead of simply tolerating Sim's presence, he let one arm ease around his colleague's waist. Sim held James closer still, one hand easing upward now that James had given himself over to it, Sim's fingers dancing over the tense muscles of his neck and shoulders. James gave a long, deep sigh of contentment as he relaxed more fully against Sim's shoulder.

His other hand wandered over to grasp his friend's forearm, hanging on as if for dear life. After a moment, his hand crept up into Sim's shaggy hair, provoking a pleased sigh from not just himself but also his friend. James smiled, the positive response emboldening him and adding to his budding sense of security. Sim mirrored his colleague's actions, fingers gently massaging James' scalp which provoked another happy little sound. Sim smiled as his friend practically melted against him. "Always thought you'd like having your hair touched," Sim said softly.

"Maybe just a bit," James conceded. "Are you sure this is all right?"

"I'm not feeling as needy as you are right now, I admit," Sim said. "You've let your heart run dry for far too long. I expect it might take a while to set you back right, probably several repetitions in a short period of time. That's all right. Just because I don't need it, doesn't mean I don't like it, or that I'm not gaining any benefit. It just means that you'll probably ask for a cuddle several times before I need to ask you to return the favour."

"Do you honestly expect me to just walk up to you and ask for… that?" James asked.

"All right, it's not the most user-friendly phraseology," Sim acknowledged with a chuckle. "But yes, I want you to do exactly that. If it's really that difficult, you can ask me to come to your office because, er…" Sim paused, glancing around. His eyes fell on the magazine that had fallen onto the floor when James gave in to the need to hold and be held. "Ask me to come to your office so you can show me an article."

"I'll try," James said, prompting a decisive shake of Sim's head.

"Not try. You'll do. Even if you have to text me while you're sitting right next to me, because you can't bring yourself to say it. No more running into such a deficit that you get this desperate, James. It's just like everything else we do together, we accept each other as-is and who gives a damn what others think, all right?" James nodded. He could agree to that, he supposed. "All right," Sim said with a contented smile as the pair settled more deeply into their comfortable, oddly intimate embrace. After a few minutes that, to James, felt like hours upon hours of sated bliss, he gently disentangled, beginning to sit up. Unlike most people who'd ever let him cling like this, Sim allowed the gesture, only taking the opportunity for one more brisk stroke of his hand through James' hair before releasing him.

"You got your fill for now?" Sim asked. James nodded, blushing slightly. "All right. Thank you for letting me share that with you, James."

"Thank you for…" James stopped, realising he was on the edge of tears, that the experience had made him astoundingly emotional. He wasn't quite ready to expose his soft bits that thoroughly, he decided. Maybe next time. James drew a deep breath, taking a second just to enjoy the sense of safety inherent in being able to consider opening up more in the future. "But… there actually is an article I've been meaning to show you; can we sit here a bit longer?" Sim nodded with a grin, and James foraged in his reading pile for the item he'd stumbled upon. "Here it is," he said as he sat shoulder to shoulder with the younger man. "I thought this might help with the train upgrade, and here, there's a wiring diagram…" The desperate need finally met, the two friends sunk deep into animated, happy, and above all, productive discussion about the challenging project.


End file.
